Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Here comes the Paul Ryan-Tom Price con: "access" to healthcare. What the hell does that mean?

Tom Price: Don't get me wrong, America. I want you
to have "the opportunity to gain access” to healthcare.

When someone starts to place words between one concept and the other, how many words and which ones matter. In the famous case that "Listerine helps prevent gingivitis" the "helps" is the sneaky word. Water also "helps prevent gingivitis." See?

So there's a significant difference between:

We want all Americans to have quality, effective healthcare.

We want all Americans to have the opportunity to gain access to quality, effective healthcare.

During questioning, [Price] reiterated his support for what would be a
fundamental change to Medicaid by requiring “able-bodied” people to be
in work activities to qualify for benefits. Whitehouse pressed him
repeatedly on whether people with addictions or mental health problems
would be required to work.

After dodging the question a few times, the nominee responded, “I think
people have an understanding of what able-bodied is, and it doesn’t
[involve] the things you described.”

Got that? If you're unemployed -- a good reason to need Medicaid -- you don't qualify for it. Good to know. And do notice the number of words that Price puts between a simple answer (no) and the end of a word-salad sentence.

Watch as these debates unfold under the Trumputin administration. You don't get healthcare, you get access to it.

Or as I've said before: Choose the cure for cancer that fits your budget! (Oh no, my budget does not include not dying.)

About the American Human

The American Human is written by Calvin Ross, a retired teacher who at various points in life has been a musician, woodworker, restaurateur, narrator, English teacher in Japan, novelist, technology journalist, and private tutor to Japanese children here in the U.S.

Happily residing in the wine country of Sonoma County north of San Francisco, Calvin has lived in the Philippines, the Netherlands, and the aforementioned Japan, as well as in Chicago, Colorado, Georgia, and many different towns in California, including, of all places, the Mojave Desert.

Calvin, you may note quickly, is a liberal progressive who doesn't think being called a socialist is all that bad, especially since he sort of would like living in Denmark if it weren't so cold. He blogs because he can.